This I know is true: Comic books aren't easy. Banish the idea that they are from your minds immediately before you proceed. Sure, artists like Noah Van Sciver (creator of Westword's weekly 4 Questions strip) make it look easy, but a comic artist is kind of like a god-figure who envisions, writes, manages to be convincingly clever or funny or dark or whatever, draws and inks and colors fast and perfectly and then starts all over again, creating yet another world in the space of a box, strip or book. And who then must start all over again. You try it.

Actually, Noah is offering you the opportunity to do just that on Wednesday, January 12, when he hosts a Talk & Draw session from 7 to 10 p.m. at Illiterate Gallery, 82 S. Broadway. As part of his interactive lecture/workshop, he'll tell you what it takes to create an alternative comic or a graphic novel based on the life of Abraham Lincoln (Van Sciver is responsible for the comic series Blammo and has a Lincoln project in the works).